


dive in deep

by theriveroflight



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Based on an AURORA Song, F/M, Post-Break Up, Sad Ending, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29072025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: Marinette reflects.
Relationships: Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	dive in deep

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally conceived as part of the LBSC Sprint Fic Challenge, but my dissatisfaction led me to publish this as a work separate from that. I will be writing a separate work for it. Stay tuned for fantasy au.
> 
> Based on the song "I Went Too Far" by AURORA. Not beta read, all mistakes are my own.

Marinette took a deep breath. It was over. It wasn’t meant to go like this. It was supposed to be good.

But all she ever wanted was to love, and to be loved in return.

She thought she was loved. She wasn’t. She wasn’t, and she thought she was almost cursed, had something that was holding her back from being able to be loved.

And she knew exactly what that was.

The earrings…they rendered her unable to find others. Because nobody wanted a lover that kept secrets, not after a long time.

Secrecy was her enemy, and isolation its consequence.

She thought Luka was the exception. She thought Luka would accept her despite her secrets. Although he accepted it for much longer than she thought he should have, he still eventually fell.

And if Luka, someone who stood by her, could say that she went too far with her secrets…well, who was she to claim that she wasn’t affected by this?

Thankfully there were no akumatizations involved. She didn’t think she could handle that, on top of going through a breakup.

Alya stood by her, thank goodness.

Unconditional.

Best friends, perhaps, but never a lover before.

(Some part of her said that she was young, that she had time still to find someone, that she had time  _ to give it up. _ )

And the breakup itself was messy.

Marinette felt a part of her was gone. She felt…lonely.

She had always felt that there was something missing, some fundamental part that prevented her from being the kind of person that people loved.

She wanted to involve Luka in her life. And she paid the price for her mistake. There was simply no other conclusion to draw from what had been done.

There was simply nothing else that she could do besides give up being Ladybug, and she couldn’t do that. No matter what.

If it was loneliness or Ladybug she would choose Ladybug, again and again, because the city needs her. There wasn’t another choice.

And she…she really thought that she could. She could let someone know just Marinette. But there was no separation between her and Ladybug, and it certainly wasn’t far enough now.

If only she could go back in time, tell her past self not to do it…because, well, it wasn’t that she didn’t love Luka.

She loved him, more than anything. The problem was that as  _ long as she was keeping her secrets,  _ there was no significant other that would ever accept her as she was, with all the secrets providing a barrier between them.

The simple solution would be to  _ tell,  _ but her secret…if her secret was to get out to the wrong people, then she would be doomed. And so would the entire city. Without her, they would fall to darkness. She didn’t know what kind of destruction Hawk Moth wanted with the wish — whether world domination or something more mundane it didn’t matter. Any wish would have consequences, and she never wanted to see those consequences as long as she were to walk the Earth.

There were certainly temptations. To wish that the Temple never fell, so she would never have been burdened in the first place. To wish that Fu had chosen someone,  _ anyone  _ else. To wish that Chat Noir were the Guardian instead of her.

(She could transfer it, but the loss of her memories would be severely damaging, and it would only be detrimental to Paris to have to train a new Ladybug.)

To wish that she were incapable of falling in love, so her heart would never break.

She shook her head. She knew people who don’t experience romance. They seemed…happier, at least, but perhaps she of all people should know how it felt to wear a mask.

There was no other way of saying it: she knew she messed up. She knew her relationship with Luka should never have gone as far as it did.

The only person to blame was her.

Marinette took a deep breath. It would do her no good to be akumatized now, days after the fact.

It was what it was. She had to accept that they wouldn’t get together, not as long as Marinette refused to tell him, and she  _ wouldn’t  _ tell him. She  _ refused  _ to tell him. Not out of any actual malice — she would never. But it was  _ necessary. _

Luka didn’t think any secrets were necessary. And in any other case she would agree. But there was nothing that could alleviate her fears, that outweighed the possibility of him  _ knowing  _ and then…and then she would constantly be in danger.

Like Chloe. He never exploited anyone else — perhaps Chloe was too public, perhaps Hawk Moth just disliked Chloe’s parents (which…he certainly had good reason to, in Marinette’s opinion) — but the end result was still the same. And it led her to her current position.

It wasn’t Luka’s fault. His concerns were completely valid. But there was nothing she could  _ do  _ about it. She couldn’t tell  _ him.  _ Fu gave up his memories because he knew. And she would have had to make sure that Luka never learned, because she wouldn’t want to erase anything in his brilliant brain.

Why was she making contingency plans for if she told him? Their relationship was over. There  _ was no longer a reason  _ to tell in the first place. The secrets broke them.

She kept bending and bending and bending until Luka snapped, and while Marinette might have  _ said  _ the words “let’s break up” it was clear that time both of them were thinking it.

That both of them thought it before, that if they stuck together it would be thought again and again until they finally learned the lesson and fell apart.

Marinette sighed. She wouldn’t be…truly alone, she supposed. She would have Alya, and Chat Noir, and Nino, and Kagami. Perhaps Luka, eventually as a friend. Perhaps they could eventually repair their relationship into something that could eventually be called friendship.

(Perhaps they could never be friends, and it was either lovers or strangers. Marinette didn’t like that possibility, though, so she wouldn’t think about it.)

But for now, she needed to cry. Crying wouldn’t absolve her of her wrongdoings, but it would certainly be cathartic.

Catharsis. That sounded good to her at the moment, when she couldn’t find anything besides more confusion.

Marinette fingered the earrings once more. She knew she made the right decision in her brain. She just had to wait for her heart to acknowledge that.


End file.
